The federal wildland fire agencies have struggled for decades to come up with a good label for fires that are not fully suppressed but are herded around in order to allow them to replicate how fires burned before humans intervened, to the extent possible after considering and mitigating numerous risk factors.
In the 1970s they were called “Let Burn” fires. That sounded too much like land managers ignored them and let them run amok. Later “Prescribed Natural Fires” and “Natural Wildland Fires” came into vogue. After the 1988 fires that burned a large portion of Yellowstone National Park, descriptions longer than two words appeared, and we saw terms like “Fires Managed for Resource Benefit”. A few others were thrown around over the next 20 years, but what we’re seeing often now is “Managed Fire”. While it is short (which is important) it does not accurately differentiate a “Managed Fire” from other fires… wildfires. All large fires are managed — by Incident MANAGEMENT Teams, for Pete’s sake. So how is the public supposed to know that a “Managed Fire” is different from one that is aggressively managed but fully suppressed?
I think we should resurrect the term “Prescribed Natural Fires”. Of course that would restrict them to fires caused by lightning or volcanoes.
What are your thoughts? What other names have been used, and what should we call them now?
“Resource Benefit Fire” is latest term I’ve heard used in USFS circles for wildfires being managed (either actively or passively) in a manner that recognizes and allows for their contribution for multiple benefits to natural resources.
I suggest calling all fires Wildfires and restarting the out by 10 am policy.
In addition, it would be wise to return to the Incident COMMAND Team concept, with leaders that have command and control experience.
I just came from the Juniper Fire which was a lightning-caused fire with multiple objectives and several management action points. It wasn’t really what you would call a prescribed natural fire, but more of a wildland fire with multiple suppression strategies, which I think of as confine, contain or control. It definitely had a maximum management area, but I don’t know if you could put it a label on it. It was very expensive for a prescribed fire, and the amount of work put into it (dozers, handcrews, engines, aircraft) puts it more in the full suppression category. Clear as mud, so I guess I don’t have a specific term. It seems like every fire is managed differently these days. All of these fires are ultimately being suppressed, either confined, contained or controlled.
B. Morgan is right on! Use the KISS principle for the politicians and the general public!
The ignition source of a prescribed fire is not important and should only be addressed in further details and information about it. The ONLY two general terms that are needed to address wildland fires is: it a wildfire or a prescribed fire?
Into which category would you put fires formerly known as “prescribed natural fires”?
A prescribed fire. It is being allowed to burn to accomplish a goal of some kind, is being watched and has limits as to size and/or direction of spread.
When we change terminology without corresponding significant changes in policy, it makes people suspicious. We can’t call these types of fires a clear, consistent, descriptive name, which makes having effective conversations about the risks and benefits of natural fire more difficult. We also make it harder for managers to want to use this approach, since the professional benefits usually amount to a pat on the back, but if things go poorly (houses burned, full suppression of a much larger fire at a much higher cost and risk to firefighters, angry public, etc.) they face serious heartache and headaches, even if policy/WFDSS/supervisors have backed up the decisions that got them there.
As terminology is changed rapidly and repeatedly it will confuse people that much more. I like the terms Wildfire for unplanned fires and Prescribed Fire for planned ones. And when a prescribed fire reaches a point its gone beyond the planned control points it shifts to wildfire. Most of the general public along with many politicians need to have things presented in easy to understand terms.
I’m all about “eco-fire”. Short for fire managed for ecological benefits.
According to the 2009 fire policy guidance, they’re all called unplanned ignitions. They should be reported by NIFC the same as a perimeter control incident, not with the vague, “last report unless significant activity occurs.” That statement implies a lower level of risk or a lower implementation difficulty than a traditional “suppression fire,” and also shows that the agencies don’t value these strategies as much, either.
One of the reasons most commonly heard for combining PNF-type fires into a generic “wildfire” classification was that resource orders for these types of fires would go to the bottom of the list for filling by dispatch centers. Another belief was that since these types of fires were perceived as “being allowed to burn,” they attracted the attention of air quality regualtors to a much higher degree than wildfires did, which were perceived as being “aggressively suppressed.” Using a “fire is fire” approach was supposed to make it easier to manage any fire with a range of objectives and tactics without the “bullseye” PNF-type fires often had attached to them.
The problems with this new approach you can readily see in the NICC morning report. Fires are listed as CTN or COMP, with the former term indicating “contain,” although it actually means it’s a full suppression fire, while the latter term indicates multiple objectives, whatever they may be. The Jack fire is a good example of the problems with this approach, beyond that a 26,000 acre fire is missing from the report. While the information on the Jack fire lists many good objectives, these COMP types of fires appear to me to be weak in defining how these objectives will be measured and compared to program objectives. If the fire has 5%, or even 95%, high severity burn areas, are resource objectives met? Is it as simple as drawing a box around the project area and the % burned is equal to the % of objectives completed? Is the mere fact it burned sufficient to say the condition class has improved? It may be easier to take this approach in wilderness, but in non-wilderness areas, one would think that there are acceptable, as well as unacceptable, fire effects.
It seems to me that the loss of the PNF/WFURB/etc. classification was a mistake, if for no other reason than reclassifying these types of fires as generic “wildfires” should not have occurred before a standard methodology to measure the effects of the fire, or portions of a fire, was in place, along with staff to do the fire effects measurements. Too, commonly mentioned by managers and researchers is that the loss of the specific coding of these fires for fire reports (such as the old type 49 fire) has greatly complicated tracking how many ignitions, or per cent of ignitions, are managed under this strategy. Other managers have stated that the loss of incident teams and other resources developed specifically for “fire use” types of fire has hurt the program.
It would be a fair question to ask managers in the field if the loss of the PNF-type term in favor of a generic “fire is fire” approach has really resulted in the benefits it was touted to achieve, or if a return to a split classification would be better. I’m not aware of any effort at the NWCG/DOI/USFS national fire level to seek this information; if the field wants the re-evalution to happen, the field will have to ask for it.
I have always felt that there should be two different terms: one term, for fires inside federally designated wilderness areas; and a different term for lands outside federal wilderness areas. How about another acronym like “LIFT” Low-Intensity-Fire-Treatment.